marijuana

In this photo made Friday, Nov. 21, 2014, former U.S. Marine Sgt. Ryan Begin smokes medical marijuana at his home in Belfast, Maine. Begin had endured 35 surgeries after having his right elbow blown off by a roadside bomb in 2004. He is a proponent of legalizing pot for recreational use and allowing individual citizens the right to grow six plants. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Arguing that medical marijuana may help wounded warriors with anxiety and stress disorders to “survive and thrive,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) have introduced legislation that would allow Department of Veterans Affairs’ doctors to recommend the drug for some patients.

The Veterans Equal Access Act and would challenge the Va’s policy that forbids doctors from consulting about medical pot use. Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported about the issue.

“We should be allowing these wounded warriors access to the medicine that will help them survive and thrive, including medical marijuana, not treating them like criminals and forcing them into the shadows,” said Blumenauer in a statement.

The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the same as heroin and LSD, deeming that it has no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. That means that VA, which runs the largest network of hospitals and health clinics in the country, cannot prescribe pot as a treatment, even for veterans who live in a state where medical marijuana is legal. VA says that its physicians and chronic-pain specialists “are prohibited from recommending and prescribing medical marijuana for PTSD or other pain-related issues.”

Medical staff are also prohibited from completing paperwork required to enroll in state marijuana programs because they are “federal employees who must comply with federal law,” said Gina Jackson, a VA spokeswoman.

Over 20 percent of the 2.8 million American veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD and depression, according to the Blumenauer statement. In addition, a recent study found that of the nearly one million veterans who receive opioids to treat painful conditions, more than half continue to consume chronically or beyond 90 days, their statement said.

Another study found that the death rate from opiate overdoses among VA patients is nearly double the national average.

“In states where patients can legally access medical marijuana for painful conditions, often as a less-addictive alternative, the hands of VA physicians should not be tied,” the statement said.

Researchers in the United States and several other countries have found evidence that cannabis can help treat post-traumatic stress disorder and pain, although studies — such as those looking into the best strains and proper dosages — remain in the early stages.

Michael Krawitz, executive director of Veterans For Medical Cannabis Access, said they “are very proud to stand by Congressman Blumenauer and support the Veterans Equal Access Act.”

“The Veterans Health Administration has made it very clear that, as federal employees, they lack the free speech necessary to write the recommendations for Veterans to comply with state programs,” said Krawitz. “This legislation is needed to correct that legal situation and repair this VA doctor-patient relationship.”

The status quo has numerous harmful effects, said Blumenauer. “It forces veterans into the black market to self-medicate,” he said. “It prevents doctors from giving their best and honest advice and recommendations. And it pushes both doctors and their patients toward drugs that are potentially more harmful and more addictive. It’s insane, and it has to stop.”

Though pot is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government, 23 states permit medical marijuana use, including Oregon and California.

From new marijuana strains for the holidays to gift sets and pot-and-pumpkin pies, the burgeoning marijuana industry in Colorado is scrambling to get a piece of the holiday shopping dollar. Dispensaries in many states have been offering holiday specials for medical customers for years — but this first season of open-to-all-adults marijuana sales in some states means pot shops are using more of the tricks used by traditional retailers to attract holiday shoppers.

Here’s a look at how the new recreational marijuana industry is trying to attract holiday shoppers.

The Grass Station in Denver is selling an ounce of marijuana for $50 — about a fifth of the cost of the next-cheapest strain at the Colorado dispensary — to the first 16 customers in line Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That works out to less than $1 a joint for the ambitious early-rising pot shopper. Owner Ryan Fox says his Black Friday pot is decent quality, and says he’s selling below cost to attract attention and pick up some new customers. As Colorado dispensaries approach a year of being able to sell weed to all adults over 21, not just card-carrying medical patients, Fox says retailers have to do more than just sell pot to get public attention.

Pot shops are using old and new media to tout the sales. One dispensary is taking out a full-page “Happy Danksgiving” ad in The Denver Post and is inviting shoppers to text a code for extra savings.

VISIONS OF SUGAR PLUMS

Sweets and marijuana seem to go together like hot chocolate and marshmallows. Many dispensaries this time of year resemble a Starbucks at the mall, with holiday spices and festive music in the air. One of the state’s largest edible-pot makers, Sweet Grass Kitchen, debuted a new miniature pumpkin pie that delivers about as much punch as a medium-sized joint. The pie joins holiday-spiced teas, minty pot confections and cannabis-infused honey oil for those who want to bake their own pot goodies at home. Even some edibles makers that specialize in savory foods, not sweets, are putting out some sugary items for the holidays. “It just tastes too good, we had to do it,” Better Baked owner Deloise Vaden said of her company’s holiday line of cannabis-infused sweet-potato and pumpkin pies.

HOLIDAY STRAINS

Some shops are angling for high-end holiday shoppers, not an increase in foot traffic. Colorado Harvest and Evergreen Apothecary timed the release of some top-shelf strains of potent pot for the holiday season. Spokeswoman Ann Dickerson says they’re “sort of like the best bourbon or Scotch that will be competing on quality, rather than price.”

GIFT WRAPPING

What holiday shopper doesn’t appreciate free gift wrapping? Or a gift set ready to pop under the tree? The Growing Kitchen is making $49.99 gift sets for both the medical and recreational pot user. The sets include the edible-pot maker’s new Mighty Mint cookie, a pot-infused confection new for the holiday shopping season, along with marijuana-infused salves for muscles sore from the ski slopes. Other dispensaries are offering free gift totes and stockings with purchases.

GIFT CARDS

For the shopper who wants to give pot but doesn’t know how the recipient likes to get high, Colorado’s 300 or so recreational dispensaries so far have been able to issue only handwritten gift certificates. That’s because banking regulations prohibit major credit cards companies from being able to back marijuana-related gift cards the way they do for other retailers.

Just this month, a Colorado company started offering pot shops a branded gift card they can sell just like other retailers. The cards are in eight Denver dispensaries so far, and coming soon will be loyalty cards similar to grocery-store loyalty cards that track purchases and can be used to suggest sales or new products to frequent shoppers.

CANNAGIFTS FOR THE MAIL

Just because marijuana can’t legally leave Colorado doesn’t mean dispensaries don’t have items for out-of-state friends and family. Some dispensaries are highlighting some non-cannabis gift items — things like T-shirts, rolling papers and lotions made with legal herbs. The sets are for shoppers who want to give a taste of Colorado’s new marijuana industry without breaking federal law by mailing it or taking it out of state.

Denver’s recreational cannabis shops are now looking for the same kind of holiday season bump in sales that many other retailers strive for. On Denver’s South Broadway Avenue, so many medicinal and recreational marijuana retailers have snatched up affordable store fronts in recent years that the area has been dubbed the Green Mile.

At Grass Station, a shop in Denver that sells $7 joints, $21 chocolate bars and even an $11 lip balm, the goal is to get the same kind of post-Thanksgiving sales bump as department stores or clothing chains. Some pot sellers have even renamed the traditional Black Friday shopping day “Green Friday.”

“We have really high expectations,” said Grass Station owner Ryan Fox. “Now we’ve got the legal means for people to give marijuana as a gift, and that’s never really been something that was feasible in the past.”

The shop expects a line at the door at 8 a.m. on Nov. 28, the day after Thanksgiving, as tokers try to get their fingers on rationed specials. Sixteen customers will get an ounce of weed for $50 that generally sells for five times that amount. Sixty joints will go for $1 each. The price for a $30 vape-pen cartridge will be cut in half.

Colorado’s almost 300 legal marijuana sellers have more to worry about than just enticing customers with discounts. The industry is grappling with 500 pages of regulation and myriad marketing restrictions. There’s also concern that the federal government still sees the trade as illegal, even if officials are looking the other way for now.

For that reason, many pot sellers have been hesitant to do a holiday marketing blitz.

“We haven’t spent much time thinking about the holidays,” he said. “We spend our time focusing on compliance.”

Colorado voted to allow pot sales for medicinal purposes in 2000. The industry didn’t take off, however, until President Barack Obama took over in 2009 and concerns about federal enforcement eased. The state later approved sales for recreational use — no doctor’s note needed — beginning in January. Until July, however, only medicinal retailers could apply for recreational-weed licenses. Now, most Colorado residents 21 and older can try to make it through the permitting gauntlet.

Billions of Dollars

While Washington is the only other state currently allowing recreational sales, voters in Alaska,Oregon and the District of Columbia approved similar measures on Nov. 4. The legalized pot industry in the U.S. will be worth about $2.3 billion this year and may grow to more than $10 billion by about 2018, according to the San Francisco-based ArcView Group, which invests in the industry.

This “green rush” generated $207 million in recreational pot sales in Colorado during the first nine months of the year, according to the state Revenue Department. In that period, recreational and medical marijuana combined to raise $52.5 million in revenue for the state through taxes, licenses and fees.

A stretch of Denver’s South Broadway avenue known for its antique shops has been infiltrated by the state’s newest industry. So many medicinal and recreational marijuana retailers have snatched up affordable storefronts in recent years that the area has been dubbed the Green Mile.

Antique Shops

Efforts by the new neighbors to create a business association have met resistance by some antique-shop owners, who worry about being overshadowed. Melding the marijuana trade with traditional businesses remains a work in progress.

In the midst of this swirling uncertainty, many pot retailers have yet to tap their inner Macy’s and roll out ambitious holiday promotions. Much of their day is spent dealing with security. Banks, concerned about possible federal retribution, mostly snub the industry, leaving it an all-cash business.

Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor who tracks the industry, said he’s not sure how big the post-Thanksgiving sales surge will be. Black Friday may not even beat a weekend in August when the jam band Phish came to town. Still, there are plenty of signs of the market’s budding sophistication — and that includes holding more promotions.

Everyday Specials

“Christmas sales, day-after-Thanksgiving sales, your-family-is-in-town-and-you-need-something-to-get-you-through sales?” Kamin said. “None of that would surprise me now that the industry has come out into the open. I would expect to see the industry behaving like any others to the extent that it can.”

On the Green Mile, pot stores range from sober names like Colorado Wellness Inc. to playful monikers such as Ganja Gourmet, Sticky Buds and the Green Depot. The establishments don’t look much different on the outside than the antique shops, pet stores and cafes next door. Just swap wood-brown color schemes for green.

The smell, however, is unmistakable. As plants are harvested in attached grow houses at some stores, the pungent musk of fresh cannabis flowers clings to the back of the nostrils like a piney potpourri.

Inside the stores, customers get a greeting that’s more like a bail bondsman than a Gap clerk in khakis. Hefty amounts of cash and weed on the premises generally require a guard — sometimes packing a sidearm — to protect a fortified metal entrance. An ID screener often sits behind bullet-proof glass, grabbing the picture cards through a small opening or drawer.

Chocolate Chews

Once customers get past the screener and enter the inner sanctum, things get fun again. At Patients Choice on the Green Mile, the Eagles’ “Hotel California” plays on the sound system as customers browse Dixie Roll chocolate chews and sarsaparilla soft drinks for $15 each. They are spiked with the cannabinoids that either make you high or take the edge off pain. Marijuana buds are prepackaged in sealed plastic pouches.

The array of offerings is dazzling. Concentrated THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, is sold in waxes, goos, hard resin bits called “shatters” and other compounds used to enhance the high. Edibles go far beyond brownies. There are chocolate bars, coffee drinks, breads, candies and the popular lollipop.

Plant-cultivation cycles and fluctuating supply can make it hard for shops like Patients Choice to plan promotions too far ahead. They aren’t always sure what products they’ll have on hand. Still, the store plans to use the holiday to attract customers during Denver’s mud season, the slow period before snow arrives and skiers hit the slopes.

Hangout Spot

At the Grass Station, located within an industrial area a few miles from Coors Field, Fox is expecting a rush of customers. The former electrical contractor, who sold medical marijuana since 2009 before transitioning to recreational sales in January, logged his biggest sales of last year on Black Friday.

Since recreational pot became legal, Fox noticed that local customers dropped by more often, treating the shop like a liquor store. Out-of-state visitors, meanwhile, would come and hang out, asking questions and exploring the place like a bookstore. So Fox decided to cater to this new consumer vibe by adding clerks and merchandising products more like a true retailer.

Grass Station budtenders assist customers at seven stations, each showcasing the shop’s product line. Transactions are completed on Apple laptops, with the store adding sales taxes amounting to more than 20 percent. On the wall behind the glass cases, video screens display prices.

On thing the store won’t be doing is embracing the “Green Friday” name. In the spirit of blending in with the rest of the retail world, Grass Station will call it Black Friday, manager Conor Morrison said.

“We all want to be taken seriously,” he said. “We want to be considered a real industry.”

President Obama’s announcement on Thursday that he would take unilateral action to address the nation’s “broken” immigration system shares at least one thing in common with how his Justice Department approaches enforcement of the nation’s marijuana laws: We would do it if we could — but we can’t.The federal government doesn’t have the manpower to find and remove each and every one of the millions of immigrants living here illegally — or to enforce the full extent of its myriad drug laws — so it should instead focus on the worst offenders.

Among the many moral and legal arguments that Obama laid out in his speech to the nation was this: Temporarily easing immigration laws for millions of undocumented immigrants was in part about choosing where to focus the government’s efforts:

And that’s why we’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day.

But even as we focus on deporting criminals, the fact is, millions of immigrants in every state, of every race and nationality still live here illegally. And let’s be honest -– tracking down, rounding up, and deporting millions of people isn’t realistic. Anyone who suggests otherwise isn’t being straight with you.

That line of reasoning may sound familiar: It’s the same logic that has allowed Colorado and Oregon to move forward with their recreational marijuana laws.

After voters in both states approved ballot measures legalizing pot in 2012, the fate of those laws depended on the federal government’s reaction. If it wanted to, the Justice Department could have squashed them then and there. Mmarijuana use remains federally prohibited, and the administration could have vowed to enforce those laws within those state borders. Instead, in August 2013, the Justice Department, under Attorney General Eric Holder, announced that it would take a more pragmatic approach.

Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime that provides a significant source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels. The Department of Justice is committed to enforcement of the CSA consistent with those determinations. The Department is also committed to using its limited investigative and prosecutorial resources to address the most significant threats in the most effective, consistent, and rational way.

Again, the government would use its limited resources to address the worst offenders and offenses. Cole went on to list eight items that the federal government would focus on, including drug money supporting gang activity and distribution to minors.

The nation’s drug and immigration laws are different, of course, as is the administration’s approach to each. But in at least one way the approaches align: Certain violations of federal law will be ignored as the government focuses on the most egregious offense.

New Jersey has had a law allowing medical marijuana for nearly five years, but drafting state regulations and opening dispensaries has been a slow process. The first one opened two years ago and since then two others have joined.

Shane Mckee, co-founder of Shango Premium Cannabis dispensary, shows a sample of medical marijuana in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. Oregon voters have made their state the third to legalize recreational pot, but it will be more than a year before the first shops open. But dispensaries that already sell medical marijuana are expected to start taking steps to get their applications in to sell recreational weed as well. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

It peaked in 2007, during the administration of a president who refused to say whether he had smoked pot because he worried about setting a bad example for the youth of America. Since 2009, when a president who “inhaled frequently” because “that was the point” took office, the number of marijuana arrests has fallen steadily—a trend that continued last year, according to FBI numbers released last week.

It’s not clear exactly why pot busts exploded during the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, when the annual total rose from fewer than 288,000 to almost 873,000—a 200 percent increase. There does not seem to be any consistent relationship between the level of marijuana consumption and the number of arrests, the vast majority of which (nearly nine out of 10 last year) involved simple possession rather than cultivation or distribution. Judging from survey data on marijuana use, arrests did not rise in response to increased consumption; nor did the cannabis crackdown have a noticeable deterrent effect.

The risk of arrest for any given pot smoker rose substantially between 1991 and 2007 but remained small. In 1991, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), about 15 million Americans smoked pot. That year there were about 288,000 marijuana arrests, one for every 52 cannabis consumers. In 2007, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (successor to the NHSDA), about 25 million Americans smoked pot. That year there were about 873,000 marijuana arrests, one for every 29 cannabis consumers.

Although the overall risk of arrest is small, it is decidedly higher for blacks and Latinos.

The Colorado Division of Financial Services this week issued Fourth Corner Credit Union an unconditional charter to operate, the first state credit-union charter issued in nearly a decade.

The next hurdles will be obtaining insurance from the National Credit Union Administration, the federal regulator of credit unions, and getting a master account from the Federal Reserve System.

Fourth Corner will be open to any legal marijuana enterprise in Colorado, as well as anyone who is a member of a nonprofit that supports legalized cannabis, according to attorney Douglas Friednash, who incorporated the credit union shortly after the charter was approved.

“We are building a whole new structure to deal with an industry that still violates federal law,” Friednash said in describing the difficulty of creating the credit union.

“In every other way the industry has been a normal business, operating in every way other businesses do, but primarily in cash,” said Denver City Councilman Chris Nevitt, one of Fourth Corner’s nine founding board members. “The one missing piece in making it completely normal was banking, the one thing that wasn’t there. Now it will be.”

While state law makes it a misdemeanor to have up to 25 grams — about a sandwich bag — of marijuana in “public view,” the mayor characterized stopping such arrests as an enforcement choice that would give police officers time to pursue more serious crime and spare people from the consequences of arrest records for cases that often end up getting dismissed.

It’s “a smart policy that keeps New Yorkers safe, but it is also a more fair policy,” said de Blasio, a first-term Democrat who has faced pressure to keep campaign promises to reduce the more than 20,000 such arrests per year.

The announcement came a week after voters in Washington, D.C., and in Oregon and Alaska approved measures legalizing marijuana, joining Colorado and Washington states.

City lawmakers, some district attorneys and civil rights advocates including the Rev. Al Sharpton hailed the change. But the city’s biggest police union said the change could tie officers’ hands.

“We do not want police officers left holding the bag if crime rises because of poor policy,” Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch said in a statement. “Writing a summons to someone who does not respect the law can result in a volatile situation.”

Under a 1977 state law, it’s only a violation to have up to 25 grams of marijuana in a pocket or bag, but the offense rises to a misdemeanor if the pot is being smoked or is “open to public view.”

Under the new policy, set to take effect Nov. 19, people caught smoking will still be arrested, as will people with open warrants or no identification. Police couldn’t provide an estimate of how many arrests wouldn’t happen under the new approach.

The arrests averaged about 2,100 a year from 1978 through 1995 and then shot up, peaking at 50,700 in 2011. Amid scrutiny of police tactics and some policy changes, they fell to 28,600 last year. There have been 24,080 this year.

Critics say the arrests are racially disproportionate: Federal statistics show similar rates of marijuana usage among whites, blacks and Hispanics, but about 86 percent of the New York arrestees are black or Hispanic. Critics also say the sheer number of arrests suggests police are bending the dividing line of “public view.” They say police illegally search people or get them to empty their pockets to bring the drug into the open and generate arrests. Officers were reminded in 2011 that they couldn’t do that.

“This proposal can only be considered a first step,” said Gabriel Sayegh, a managing director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for less restrictive drug laws.

As the arrests persisted, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson announced in July he would drop many of the cases before the defendants had to go to court. His office has dismissed about one-third of such cases.

Thompson had no immediate comment on the announcement. Some of his colleagues said it would ease crowded criminal court caseloads, and Manhattan DA Cyrus R. Vance Jr. called it “simply the right thing to do.”

Privateer Holdings Inc., a private-equity firm that invests exclusively in marijuana businesses, is creating a line of Bob Marley-inspired cannabis. As of yesterday, no application for “Marley Natural,” the brand name chosen for the products, has shown up in the trademark database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

According to a statement from the family of the late reggae singer, Marley Natural will be “the world’s first global cannabis brand.” It will offer “premium cannabis products that honor the life and legacy of Bob Marley as well as his belief in the benefits of cannabis,” the family said in its statement. The products, developed in conjunction with Marley’s family, will go on sale next year.

Voters in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia opted to legalize recreational pot in the Nov. 4 election, joining Washington and Colorado. Medical use of the drug is allowed in D.C. and 23 states. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week he would direct the police to reduce arrests over small amounts of pot by issuing tickets instead.

While marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, the U.S. Justice Department has said it won’t challenge state legalization.

As more states legalize the drug, the rush for marijuana-related trademarks is on, with some already registered, according to the patent office.

They include “Hemp Meds,” registered Oct. 14 by Medical Marijuana Inc. of Poway, California; “Allbud,” registered Oct. 7 by AB Resources LLC of Tucson, Arizona; “HGT” superimposed over the image of a marijuana leaf, registered Oct. 21 by a resident of Carl Junction, Missouri; and “US Cannabis Cup,” registered June 24 by Trans-High Corp. of New York.

Marijuana is “no longer a subculture or countercultural thing,” Privateer co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Brendan Kennedy said in an interview. “Part of ending prohibition is by creating brands that fuel change.”

The crowning inconsistency of the federal drug control system has always been the classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance under federal law, which makes it among the Worst of the Worst drugs as far as the DEA is concerned — literally as bad as heroin, and worse than cocaine!

The Controlled Substances Act, which set up the drug schedules in the early 1970s, explicitly places drug scheduling authority in the hands of the attorney general, and even instructs him or her to “remove any drug or other substance from the schedules if he finds that the drug or other substance does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any schedule.”

Much to the chagrin and outright befuddlement of drug law reformers, however, outgoing attorney general Eric Holder has repeatedly stated that any changes to the scheduling status of marijuana should be made by Congress.

In an interview with the just-launched Marshall Project, a non-profit news outfit covering criminal justice issues, he said, “I think the question of how these drugs get scheduled and how they are ultimately treated is something for Congress to work on.” This echoes remarks he made in a September interview with Katie Couric, when he said that federal marijuana decriminalization was something for Congress to decide.

As Firedoglake’s Jon Walker noted, it’s strange that Holder is trying to punt this issue to Congress while the Obama administration is testing the limits of executive authority elsewhere: “It is just mind boggling that while the Obama administration is looking at ways to stretch their legal authority to use executive actions to get around Congress on issues, like the environment and immigration, they would still refuse to move forward on the one issue where they are so explicitly given the power to act under current law,” Walker writes.

The DEA had no problem acting unilaterally to move hydrocodone products up from Schedule III to Schedule II earlier this year. It also added the previously-unscheduled synthetic opiate tramadol to the drug schedule. So Holder’s conspicuous deference to Congress on marijuana is puzzling.

Cautious politicians often espouse a “wait-and-see” approach on marijuana reform. But on the scheduling issue, Holder’s going beyond wait-and-see and saying, essentially, that it isn’t even his job. Even though the Controlled Substances Act states, explicitly, that it is his job!

The administration asking Congress to take up the issue is especially strange when you consider that earlier this year, a bipartisan group of congressmen asked the administration to literally do the same thing. In essence, the Justice Department and Congress are both begging each other to fix federal marijuana laws, but nobody’s doing anything.

Welcome to Washington in 2014.

(Christopher Ingraham writes about politics, drug policy and all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center.)